TRANSPORTS DISCHARGING IN LIVERPOOL DOCKS 245

TROOP TRANSPORTS DISEMBARKING AT THE
LANDING-STAGE, LIVERPOOL 249

'M N' 252

[Illustration: THE CLYDE FROM THE TOWER OF THE CLYDE TRUST BUILDINGS]

INTRODUCTION

WRITTEN largely between the shipping crisis of 1917 and the surrender of
German undersea arms at Harwich on November 20, 1918, this book is an
effort to record a seaman's impressions of the trial through which the
Merchants' Service has come in the war.

It is necessarily halting and incomplete. The extent of the subject is
perhaps beyond the safe traverse of a mariner's dead reckoning. Policies
of governmental control and of the economics of our management do not
come within the scope of the book except as text to the diary of
seafaring. Out at sea it is not easy to keep the right proportions in
forming an opinion of measures devised on a grand scale, and of the
operation of which we see only a small part. Our slender thread of
communication with longshore happenings is often broken, and
understanding is warped by conjecture.

In pride of his ancient trade, the seaman may perceive an importance and
vital instrumentality in the ships and their voyages that may not be so
evident to the landsman. By this is the mariner constantly impressed:
that, without the merchant's enterprise on the sea--the adventure of his
finance, his ships, his gear, his men--the armed and enlisted resources
of the State could not have prevailed in averting disaster and defeat.

The unique experiences of individual seamen--the trials of seafaring
under less favourable circumstances than was the writer's good
fortune--the plaints and grievances of our internal affairs--are but
lightly sketched. Many brother seamen may feel that the harassing and
often despairing case of the average tramp steamer has not adequately
been dealt with; that--in "Outward Bound," as an instance--the writer
presents a tranquil and idyllic picture which cannot be accepted as
typical. The bitter hardship of proceeding on a voyage under war
conditions, with the same small crew that was found inadequate in
peace-time, is hardly suggested; the extent of the work to be overtaken
is perhaps camouflaged in that description of setting out. Reality would
more frequently show a vessel being hurried out of dock on the top of
the tide, putting to sea into heavy weather,